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News Articles
Excerpts of Key News Articles in Major Media


Below are key excerpts of little-known, yet highly revealing news articles from the media. Links are provided to the full news articles for verification. If any link fails to function, read this webpage. These articles are listed by order of importance. You can also explore these articles listed by order of the date of the news article or by the date posted. By choosing to educate ourselves, we can build a brighter future.

Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on dozens of engaging topics. And read excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.


After leaving the Navy, I was doing cocaine, popping pills, and drinking over a fifth of vodka a day. Then, I had a 'death experience' that changed everything.
2025-05-10, Business Insider
https://www.businessinsider.com/after-navy-drinking-and-drugs-death-experienc...

I had been a SEAL for five and a half years. After that, I worked as a contractor with the CIA. When that ended, I crashed–hard. I got into sleeping pills. I was using opiates. Eventually, I moved out of the country and started living in MedellĂ­n, Colombia. That's where I got really into cocaine. Eventually, I hit a point where I knew I couldn't keep going. A friend told me about psychedelic therapy, and I decided to try it. The first was Ibogaine. It's a 12-hour experience. I basically watched my entire life play out from a different perspective. After the Ibogaine effects wore off, I did another psychedelic called 5-MeO-DMT, sometimes called the "God molecule." The trip is described as an ego death, or death experience. It was the most intense, intuitive thing I've ever felt. I came out of it seeing the world differently. For the first time in my life, I realized everything is connected. That hit me in a way nothing else ever had. When I came back from that psychedelic experience, I didn't need the pills anymore. I didn't need the vodka. I quit everything. And for the first time in a long time, I was fully present with my family. That experience changed everything. It gave me a second chance. That's why I started talking about this publicly. I wanted other veterans ... to know there's a way out. A lot of them have been through the same thing – addiction, trauma, broken families, suicidal thoughts. When they hear that someone else made it through, they start to believe that maybe they can too.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on psychedelic medicine and healing the war machine.


How BlackRock's CEO Gets Paid Is Anyone's Guess
2025-05-06, Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-05-07/how-blackrock-s-larry-f...

BlackRock Inc.'s annual proxy statement devotes more than 50 pages to executive pay. How many of those are useful in understanding why Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink was compensated to the tune of $37 million for 2024? Not enough. The asset manager's latest remuneration report has heightened significance because BlackRock's shareholders delivered a rare and large protest vote against its pay framework at last year's annual meeting. That followed recommendations ... to withhold support for the so-called say-on-pay motion. In the wake of the rebuke, a board committee responsible for pay and perks took to the phones and hit the road to hear shareholders' gripes. Investors wanted more explanation of how the committee members used their considerable discretion in arriving at awards. There was also an aversion to one-time bonuses absent tough conditions. Incentive pay is 50% tied to BlackRock's financial performance, with the remainder split equally between objectives for "business strength" and "organizational strength." That financial piece was previously described using a non-exhaustive list of seven financial metrics. Now there are eight, gathered under three priorities: "drive shareholder value creation," "accelerate organic revenue growth" and "enhance operating leverage." There's no weighting given to the three financial priorities. The pay committee says Fink "far exceeded" expectations, but those expectations weren't quantified.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on financial industry corruption.


Scientists make surprising discovery about one of the world's most invasive species: 'Nature-based solutions'
2025-05-06, Yahoo News
https://www.yahoo.com/news/scientists-surprising-discovery-one-worlds-1100238...

An unlikely natural ally in the fight against microplastics has been discovered. Researchers in China have found that invasive water hyacinths are adept at absorbing microplastics without harm to the plant itself. Experiments against a control group showed that plastics were mostly trapped on the outside of the water hyacinth's root systems. The few that get inside the plant are quickly separated before nutrients get to the leaves. Typically, plants exposed to microplastics suffer ill effects. Water hyacinths are native to South America. Two plants were able to produce 1,200 daughter plants in four months, according to one study. Any given population of water hyacinth can double in size in six days. Once dropped into a new foreign habitat, invasive species ... can squeeze out native species, reduce biodiversity, and eliminate vital ecosystem services. Not long ago, Arkansas had to issue a statement on the threat water hyacinths posed to agriculture. On the flip side, microplastics are a scourge. They'll often end up in the fish we catch, and once eaten by humans, they can cause problems with the endocrine, immune, and reproductive systems. Despite their rapid proliferation, it may still be worth strategically deploying water hyacinths. Other studies have shown that water hyacinths can also absorb heavy metals and agricultural runoff. Meanwhile, enterprising individuals have been able to take the excess biomass of the plants and turn it into briquettes and bioplastics.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on microplastic solutions.


Michigan Prison Films Women in Showers – and Caught Guards Saying Lewd Things, Lawsuit Says
2025-05-06, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2025/05/06/michigan-prison-women-camera-recording-la...

A $500 million lawsuit filed Monday in Washtenaw County Circuit Court is taking aim at the Michigan Department of Corrections, alleging that prison officials subjected hundreds of incarcerated women to illegal surveillance by recording them during strip searches, while showering, and even as they used the toilet. At the heart of the case is a deeply controversial and, according to experts, unprecedented policy implemented at Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility, the only women's prison in Michigan. Under the Michigan Department of Corrections policy directive, prison guards were instructed to wear activated body cameras while conducting routine strip searches, capturing video of women in states of complete undress. The suit, brought by the firm Flood Law, alleges a range of abuses, including lewd comments from prison guards during recorded searches, and long-term psychological trauma inflicted on women, many of whom are survivors of sexual violence. Attorneys for the 20 Jane Does listed on the suit and hundreds of others on retainer argued that this practice not only deprived women of their dignity, but also violated widely accepted detention standards. No other state in the country permits such recordings; many have explicit prohibitions against filming individuals during unclothed searches, recognizing the inherent risk of abuse and the acute vulnerability of the people being searched. Michigan, the attorneys said, stands alone.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on prison system corruption and sexual abuse scandals.


Car Subscription Features Raise Your Risk of Government Surveillance, Police Records Show
2025-04-28, Wired
https://www.wired.com/story/police-records-car-subscription-features-surveill...

Automakers are increasingly pushing consumers to accept monthly and annual fees to unlock preinstalled safety and performance features, from hands-free driving systems and heated seats to cameras that can automatically record accident situations. But the additional levels of internet connectivity this subscription model requires can increase drivers' exposure to government surveillance and the likelihood of being caught up in police investigations. Police records recently reviewed by WIRED show US law enforcement agencies regularly trained on how to take advantage of "connected cars," with subscription-based features drastically increasing the amount of data that can be accessed during investigations. Nearly all subscription-based car features rely on devices that come preinstalled in a vehicle, with a cellular connection necessary only to enable the automaker's recurring-revenue scheme. The ability of car companies to charge users to activate some features is effectively the only reason the car's systems need to communicate with cell towers. Companies often hook customers into adopting the services through free trial offers, and in some cases the devices are communicating with cell towers even when users decline to subscribe. In a letter sent in April 2024 ... US senators Ron Wyden and Edward Markey ... noted that a range of automakers, from Toyota, Nissan, and Subaru, among others, are willing to disclose location data to the government.

Note: Automakers can collect intimate information that includes biometric data, genetic information, health diagnosis data, and even information on people's "sexual activities" when drivers pair their smartphones to their vehicles. The automakers can then take that data and sell it or share it with vendors and insurance companies. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on police corruption and the disappearance of privacy.


Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre – who killed herself at her Australian home – once declared, ‘In no way, shape or form am I suicidal'
2025-04-26, New York Post
https://nypost.com/2025/04/26/world-news/jeffrey-epstein-victim-virginia-giuf...

Virginia Giuffre – who killed herself at her home in Western Australia – once sternly warned she would never commit suicide. The Jeffrey Epstein victim turned whistleblower made the statement in a post on X in 2019, replying to another user who claimed the "F.B.I. will kill her to protect the ultra rich and well connected." "I am making it publicly known that in no way, shape or form am I suicidal," she wrote. "I have made this known to my therapist and GP – If something happens to me – in the sake of my family do not let this go away and help me to protect them. Too many evil people want to see me [quieted]." The old tweet was resurfaced on X and shared by well-known conservatives including including House Republicans Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene. The ... suicide came just weeks after she made headlines for saying she had "four days to live" following a collision with a bus. The bus driver later disputed Giuffre's claim about the seriousness of the incident. Giuffre took legal action against billionaire financier and convicted pedophile Epstein in 2015, alleging she was sex trafficked at 16 after ... Ghislaine Maxwell recruited her from her job as a locker room attendant at President Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort. She also alleged she was forced to have sex with disgraced Prince Andrew three times when she was 17 – including at Epstein's Little St. James island, in New Mexico and in Maxwell's London home.

Note: Could it be that there's more to this story than a tragic suicide? Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficking ring.


From help to harm: How the government is quietly repurposing everyone's data for surveillance
2025-04-23, The Conversation
https://theconversation.com/from-help-to-harm-how-the-government-is-quietly-r...

Data that people provide to U.S. government agencies for public services such as tax filing, health care enrollment, unemployment assistance and education support is increasingly being redirected toward surveillance and law enforcement. Originally collected to facilitate health care, eligibility for services and the administration of public services, this information is now shared across government agencies and with private companies, reshaping the infrastructure of public services into a mechanism of control. Once confined to separate bureaucracies, data now flows freely through a network of interagency agreements, outsourcing contracts and commercial partnerships built up in recent decades. Key to this data repurposing are public-private partnerships. The DHS and other agencies have turned to third-party contractors and data brokers to bypass direct restrictions. These intermediaries also consolidate data from social media, utility companies, supermarkets and many other sources, enabling enforcement agencies to construct detailed digital profiles of people without explicit consent or judicial oversight. Palantir, a private data firm and prominent federal contractor, supplies investigative platforms to agencies. These platforms aggregate data from various sources – driver's license photos, social services, financial information, educational data – and present it in centralized dashboards designed for predictive policing and algorithmic profiling. Data collected under the banner of care could be mined for evidence to justify placing someone under surveillance. And with growing dependence on private contractors, the boundaries between public governance and corporate surveillance continue to erode.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and the disappearance of privacy.


Geoengineering's Risks Need to Be Studied More
2025-04-22, Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-04-22/earth-day-2025-geoengin...

More than a dozen private companies around the world are looking to profit from extreme measures to combat global warming – filling the sky with sunlight-blocking particles, brightening clouds or changing the chemistry of the oceans. The problem is that nobody knows how to control the unintended consequences. Some scientists who've studied and modeled the complexity of Earth's oceans and atmosphere say any "geoengineering" scheme big enough to affect the climate could put people at risk of dramatic changes in the weather, crop failures, damage to the ozone layer, international conflict and other irreversible problems. Environmental lawyer David Bookbinder is more afraid of geoengineering than he is of climate change. "The consequences of geoengineering could happen a lot faster and with much less warning," he said. He said the world lacks the legal or regulatory framework to ensure no single government or private entity takes a risky initiative. At the same time, "there's a clamor for tech solutions." Mark Z. Jacobson, an atmospheric modeler ... said we've already seen the results of several natural experiments. Some forms of air pollution have been cooling the planet by about 1 degree C, but that same pollution also kills millions of people from respiratory illnesses. In 1815, the eruption of Tambora injected so many particles into the atmosphere that 1816 was dubbed "the year without a summer." People died from crop failure and famine.

Note: Regenerative farming is far safer and more promising than geoengineering for stabilizing the climate. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on geoengineering and science corruption.


Trump Admin Enacts Vast Censorship of American Scientists over Israel
2025-04-22, Lee Fang on Substack
https://www.leefang.com/p/trump-admin-enacts-vast-censorship

Research institutes and universities may engage in boycotts or divestment to pressure any country or government entity in the world. That right no longer exists when it comes to protests of Israel. Researchers and university employees who engage in certain nonviolent protests or political expression over human rights conditions in Israel may risk civil and criminal penalties, according to a new policy unveiled by the National Institutes of Health yesterday. The agency, the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world, touches virtually every corner of the scientific community. The blanket boycott suppression is a radical expansion of so-called "anti-BDS" rules that restrict Americans from boycotting or simply advocating divestment from Israel-related businesses. The new NIH policy, which mirrors anti-BDS laws applied to contractors in thirty eight states ... applies to all "domestic recipients of new, renewal, supplement, or continuation awards" issued starting April 21. The Trump administration policy reflects a dramatic escalation in speech-policing regarding Israel. Since March 8th, immigration agents have arrested and threatened to deport a number of foreign students who have engaged in protests or criticism of Israel's government. Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year old PhD student at Tufts University caught in the recent sweep, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents last month. She now resides in an ICE prison cell in Louisiana.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on censorship and government corruption.


Pesticide and Agribusiness Lobbyists Take Posts Overseeing MAHA Priorities
2025-04-16, Lee Fang on Substack
https://www.leefang.com/p/pesticide-and-agribusiness-lobbyists

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, in a brief announcement unveiling new staff hires on Monday, released a blurb about Kelsey Barnes, her recently appointed senior advisor. Barnes is a former lobbyist for Syngenta, the Chinese state-owned giant that manufactures and sells a number of controversial pesticide products. Syngenta's atrazine-based herbicides, for instance, is banned in much of the world yet is widely used in American agriculture. It is linked to birth defects, low sperm quality, irregular menstrual cycles, and other fertility problems. The leadership of USDA is filled with personnel with similar backgrounds. Scott Hutchins, the undersecretary for research, is a former Dow Chemical executive at the firm's pesticide division. Kailee Tkacz Buller, Rollins's chief of staff, previously worked as the president of the National Oilseed Processors Association and Edible Oil Producers Association, groups that lobby for corn and other seed oil subsidies. Critics have long warned that industry influence at the USDA creates inherent conflicts of interest, undermining the agency's regulatory mission and public health mandates. The revolving door hires also highlight renewed tension with the "Make America Healthy Again" agenda promised by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans may serve as a test of whether establishment industry influence at the agencies will undermine MAHA promises.

Note: Read our latest Substack article on how the US government turns a blind eye to the corporate cartels fueling America's health crisis. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and toxic chemicals.


No booze, no cover, no judging: Inside Mexico City's free dance parties
2025-04-13, Associated Press
https://apnews.com/article/mexico-city-dancing-network-free-dance-community-b...

A pavilion of towering windows in a Mexico City urban park is nearly packed. Everyone here wants the same thing: to dance freely, at no cost, without harassment or prejudice. Twenty-somethings, children with their mothers, teenagers and elderly couples gather around the disc jockey's console. "This is an open invitation for everyone to move as they wish in a safe space!" said Axel MartĂ­nez, one of the collective's founders, as he grabs a microphone and cheers the revelers on. At their own pace, each person is carried away by the music – and no one seems surprised by the moves of others. From experimental jazz pieces and smooth Egyptian hip-hop to the more familiar pulse of cumbias grooved with an electronic touch, people dance to it all. The party was organized by the Nueva Red de Bailadores or NRB (New Network of Dancers), a collective that aims to create spaces where people can gather to dance freely. There's no cover charge, no booze, and no pressure to do the "right" moves. As organizers pointed out, their parties forgo police and security, fostering a sense of collective care where attendees look out for one another. Isabel Miraflores, a 73-year-old retired high school assistant principal, came with her husband and said she enjoyed both the dancing and the presence of people of different ages. "I think it's wonderful because it's a free event," she said. "We get together with people from all parts of society and we have fun without any trouble."

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on the power of art and healing social division.


New FBI chat logs reveal extraordinary ‘gag order' senior leadership used to shut down any Hunter Biden laptop discussion
2025-04-02, New York Post
https://nypost.com/2025/04/02/opinion/miranda-devine-new-fbi-chat-logs-reveal...

New chat logs released by the House Judiciary Committee this week show the extraordinary lengths the FBI went to behind the scenes to shut down any discussion of Hunter Biden's laptop in October 2020 after the New York Post broke the story. The conversations, withheld by the FBI under Director Chris Wray, show that senior leadership issued an internal "gag order" on the laptop. The FBI had been in possession of the abandoned MacBook Pro for 10 months by that stage, after computer repair shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac handed it over. The FBI's forensic analysts quickly determined the laptop belonged to Hunter, had not been tampered with or altered in any way, and was suitable to be used in court. Yet the chat logs show that senior FBI officials instructed agents to say "No comment" when asked about the laptop during regular meetings with social media companies before the 2020 election. The FBI had spent weeks warning Facebook and Twitter about election interference in the form of Russian disinformation and had told Twitter to be on guard for a "hack and leak" operation "likely" involving Hunter Biden. In other words, the FBI "prebunked" The Post's story so that the social media companies immediately censored it. The FBI knew The Post had received a hard-drive copy of the laptop from Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani because it had a covert surveillance warrant on the former mayor's iCloud.

Note: It took more than a year for New York Times and Washington Post to finally admit that the laptop was genuine. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on censorship and intelligence agency corruption.


Move fast, kill things: the tech startups trying to reinvent defence with Silicon Valley values
2025-03-29, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/29/move-fast-kill-things-the-tech-...

Skydio, with more than $740m in venture capital funding and a valuation of about $2.5bn, makes drones for the military along with civilian organisations such as police forces and utility companies. The company moved away from the consumer market in 2020 and is now the largest US drone maker. Military uses touted on its website include gaining situational awareness on the battlefield and autonomously patrolling bases. Skydio is one of a number of new military technology unicorns – venture capital-backed startups valued at more than $1bn – many led by young men aiming to transform the US and its allies' military capabilities with advanced technology, be it straight-up software or software-imbued hardware. The rise of startups doing defence tech is a "big trend", says Cynthia Cook, a defence expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based-thinktank. She likens it to a contagion – and the bug is going around. According to financial data company PitchBook, investors funnelled nearly $155bn globally into defence tech startups between 2021 and 2024, up from $58bn over the previous four years. The US has more than 1,000 venture capital-backed companies working on "smarter, faster and cheaper" defence, says Dale Swartz from consultancy McKinsey. The types of technologies the defence upstarts are working on are many and varied, though autonomy and AI feature heavily.

Note: For more, watch our 9-min video on the militarization of Big Tech.


Making it rain: How weather manipulation and geoengineering are fueling global tensions
2025-03-28, Fortune
https://fortune.com/europe/2025/03/28/weather-manipulation-geoengineering-fue...

While attempting to control the weather might sound like science fiction, countries have been seeding clouds for decades to try to make rain or snow fall in specific regions. Invented in the 1940s, seeding involves a variety of techniques including adding particles to clouds via aircraft. It is used today across the world in an attempt to alleviate drought, fight forest fires and even to disperse fog at airports. In 2008, China used it to try to stop rain from falling on Beijing's Olympic stadium. But experts say that there is insufficient oversight of the practice, as countries show an increasing interest in this and other geoengineering techniques as the planet warms. The American Meteorological Society has said that "unintended consequences" of cloud seeding have not been clearly shown – or ruled out – and raised concerns that unanticipated effects from weather modification could cross political boundaries. And there have been instances when cloud seeding was used deliberately in warfare. The United States used it during "Operation Popeye" to slow the enemy advance during the Vietnam War. In response, the UN created a 1976 convention prohibiting "military or any other hostile use of environmental modification techniques". A number of countries have not signed the convention. Researcher Laura Kuhl said there was "significant danger that cloud seeding may do more harm than good", in a 2022 article for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Note: Regenerative farming is far safer and more promising than geoengineering for stabilizing the climate. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on geoengineering and science corruption.


JFK wanted to splinter CIA ‘into a thousand pieces.' Why didn't he?
2025-03-27, Quincy Center for Responsible Statecraft
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/jfk-files-cia/

When the final, declassified records from the John F. Kennedy assassination files were posted on the National Archives' website last week, the first document researchers and reporters searched for was White House adviser Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s June 1961 memorandum to the president titled "CIA Reorganization." "How could I have been so stupid as to let them proceed?" President John Kennedy asked his advisers following the CIA's infamous fiasco at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961. Beyond the fact that the U.S. invasion of Cuba was an egregious act of aggression – violating international law and Cuba's sovereignty – its failure was a catastrophic embarrassment for JFK, only weeks into his White House tenure. Kennedy held CIA director Allen Dulles, and his deputy for covert operations Richard Bissell, personally responsible for deceiving him on the prospects for success of the ill-planned paramilitary assault. Indeed, as he processed the implications of the failed invasion, Kennedy vented his desire to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds." That concept was more than angry rhetoric; the president actually set in motion a secret set of deliberations on breaking up the intelligence, espionage and covert action functions of the CIA and subordinating its operations to the State Department. The CIA's operational branches would be "reconstituted" under a new agency.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption and the JFK assassination.


A Mysterious Startup Is Developing a New Form of Solar Geoengineering
2025-03-22, Wired
https://www.wired.com/story/a-mysterious-startup-is-developing-a-new-form-of-...

In July 2012, a renegade American businessman, Russ George, took a ship off the coast of British Columbia and dumped 100 tons of iron sulfate dust into the Pacific Ocean. He had unilaterally, and some suggest illegally, decided to trigger an algae bloom to absorb some carbon dioxide from the atmosphere–an attempt at geoengineering. Now a startup called Stardust seeks something more ambitious: developing proprietary geoengineering technology that would help block sun rays from reaching the planet. Stardust formed in 2023 and is based in Israel but incorporated in the United States. Geoengineering projects, even those led by climate scientists at major universities, have previously drawn the ire of environmentalists and other groups. Such a deliberate transformation of the atmosphere has never been done, and many uncertainties remain. If a geoengineering project went awry, for example, it could contribute to air pollution and ozone loss, or have dramatic effects on weather patterns, such as disrupting monsoons in populous South and East Asia. Stardust ... has not publicly released details about its technology, its business model, or exactly who works at its company. But the company appears to be positioning itself to develop and sell a proprietary geoengineering technology to governments that are considering making modifications to the global climate–acting like a kind of defense contractor for climate alteration.

Note: Regenerative farming is far safer and more promising than geoengineering for stabilizing the climate. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on geoengineering and science corruption.


Covid vaccine damage consultants paid more than victims
2025-03-16, The Telegraph (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/16/covid-vaccine-damage-consultants-...

Consultants assessing Covid vaccine damage claims on behalf of the NHS have been paid millions more than the victims, it has emerged. Freedom of Information requests made by The Telegraph show that US-based Crawford and Company has carried out nearly 13,000 medical assessments, but dismissed more than 98 per cent of cases. Just 203 claimants have been notified they are entitled to a one-off payment of Ł120,000 through the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) amounting to Ł24,360,000. Yet Crawford and Company has received Ł27,264,896 for its services. Prof Richard Goldberg, chairman in law at Durham University, with a special interest in vaccine liability and compensation, said: "The idea that this would be farmed out to a private company to make a determination is very odd. It's taxpayers money and money is tight at the moment. "The lack of transparency is not helpful and there is a terrible sense of secrecy about all of this. One gets the sense that their main objective is for these cases not to succeed. "There are no stats available so we don't know the details about how these claims are being decided or whether previous judgments are being taken into account." The Hart (Health Advisory and Recovery Team) group, which was set up by medical professionals and scientists during the pandemic, has warned that Crawford and Company has a "troubling reputation with numerous reports of mismanagement and claims denials across various sectors".

Note: COVID vaccine manufacturers have total immunity from liability if people die or become injured as a result of the vaccine. Our Substack dives into the complex world of COVID vaccines with nuance and balanced investigation. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on COVID vaccine problems.


Listen up, wise up: Forums that inspire trust
2025-03-11, Christian Science Monitor
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2025/0311/Listen-up-wi...

A big challenge for democracies today is a decline in trust. The share of Americans who trust government, for example, has fallen from 77% to 22% since 1964. The latest attempt to build trust in the United States is a new online, state-run public forum called Engaged California. The effort aims to prompt, gather, and synthesize conversations about the state's response to the Los Angeles wildfires into reforms. When Taiwan began a similar program in 2014, approval for the government was below 10%. Within eight years, it was 70%, although other factors contributed. The idea of designing civic spaces for civil dialogue has been best expressed in citizen assemblies. Two decades ago, for instance, British Columbia's premier wanted to reform the electoral system but knew few people would trust the government to do it. So he recruited a wide-ranging group of citizens, asking them to devise a solution after listening to a diversity of experts. Citizen assemblies have helped build mutual trust, found Stephen Elstub, professor of democratic politics. "Because [they] require participants to listen to each other's views and debate in an informed and reasonable way," he wrote, "they can improve the quality of democracy." These assemblies have been used worldwide, most notably to help Ireland navigate fraught topics such as abortion. Before they worked in such groups, 72% of participants were dissatisfied with how democracy was working. Afterward, dissatisfaction dropped to 54%.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division.


What happens if the robot army is defeated?
2025-03-10, Quincy Center for Responsible Statecraft
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ai-weapons-from-washington/

The Pentagon's technologists and the leaders of the tech industry envision a future of an AI-enabled military force wielding swarms of autonomous weapons on land, at sea, and in the skies. Assuming the military does one day build a force with an uncrewed front rank, what happens if the robot army is defeated? Will the nation's leaders surrender at that point, or do they then send in the humans? It is difficult to imagine the services will maintain parallel fleets of digital and analog weapons. The humans on both sides of a conflict will seek every advantage possible. When a weapon system is connected to the network, the means to remotely defeat it is already built into the design. The humans on the other side would be foolish not to unleash their cyber warriors to find any way to penetrate the network to disrupt cyber-physical systems. The United States may find that the future military force may not even cross the line of departure because it has been remotely disabled in a digital Pearl Harbor-style attack. According to the Government Accountability Office, the Department of Defense reported 12,077 cyber-attacks between 2015 and 2021. The incidents included unauthorized access to information systems, denial of service, and the installation of malware. Pentagon officials created a vulnerability disclosure program in 2016 to engage so-called ethical hackers to test the department's systems. On March 15, 2024, the program registered its 50,000th discovered vulnerability.

Note: For more, watch our 9-min video on the militarization of Big Tech.


Trump's Spy Chief Urged to Declassify Details of Secret Surveillance Program
2025-03-06, Wired
https://www.wired.com/story/tulsi-gabbard-declassify-details-of-secret-survei...

Former US congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard's ascendance to director of national intelligence last month signaled a major shift in views toward government surveillance at the highest rung of the US intelligence community. Major privacy groups this week urged Gabbard to declassify information concerning Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)–the nation's cornerstone wiretap authority ... known to vacuum up large quantities of calls, texts, and emails belonging to Americans. The groups privately urged Gabbard this week to declassify information regarding the types of US businesses that can now be secretly compelled to install wiretaps on the US National Security Agency's (NSA) behalf. While it's no secret that the government routinely compels phone and email service providers like AT&T and Google into conducting wiretaps, Congress passed a new provision last year expanding the range of businesses that can receive such orders. Legal experts had warned in advance that the provision was far too ambiguous and likely to vastly increase the number of Americans whose communications are wiretapped. But their warnings were not heeded. In response to questions from the US Senate ... Gabbard backed the idea of requiring the Federal Bureau of Investigation to obtain warrants before accessing the communications of Americans swept up by the 702 program.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of intelligence agency corruption and the disappearance of privacy.


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